Oh, Just Hangin' About, Jackson Style
by Eilidh17
Summary: A bit of fun with Daniel and Vala. Peril, imminent death, huge honkin' spiders... that kind of thing!


"Just **don't** move!" Daniel held out a hand to Vala, suggesting that her rather precarious position would become a whole lot more perilous if she were to do so much as sneeze.

"Are you sure, Daniel?" Vala tried not to look down, really she did, but when the only thing keeping you from plunging to your death was a few inches of bedrock, well… "You know, as much as hanging about with you has a predilection towards the amusing, that is when we're not busy fighting for our lives, I really didn't intend to make the 'hanging' part so literal."

"Will you just stop your yammering for a moment!" he hissed, voice rising with each word. "The cliff isn't the issue here."

"Really? Huh! Well, then it must be the dry riverbed several hundred feet below that I will eventually decorate in a way Martha Stewart would not approve of, as I plunge to a rather horrible death. I guess I can only hope to be face up as I hit the ground."

"Vala!"

"No, don't stop me now! If I'm going to die then at least let me take a pro-active part in the planning stage. So, as we've already deduced, death by freefall wasn't on my agenda when I arose this morning."

"You mean when you ran out of the tent in nothing but your-"

"Yes, yes," she waved a hand in the air dismissively, "being roused by a gargantuan spider determined to eat me for breakfast was _certainly_ quite the waker-upper, I must say. I guess we should all say thank you to the patron saint of Victoria's Secret that I was wearing a pair of boy-leg panties and not my normal thong."

"Amen to that," Daniel muttered coyly.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing, but if you'd applied the repellent the Azuers insisted we wear then you wouldn't have had a spider in your bed."

"Yes, well, it was definitely more of a thrill for the spider. And where in the pre-mission briefing did it mention their disgustingly lewd mating habits? Really, darling, it was bad enough that we chose to visit this delightful little rock in the middle of arachnid baby-making season, but did you really have to take so many pictures? Getting ideas for Karma Sutra - Stargate style, were we?"

Daniel knocked his head against the cliff face in frustration. "Teal'c. It was Teal'c wasn't it?"

"Well, Muscles does have quite the repertoire of positions…"

"What?"

"You asked if it was Teal'c!"

"I asked if it was Teal'c who gave you a book on Karma Sutra!"

"Oh, right, well, he's quite versed on the many and varied mating positions used for copulation on your fair planet. Did you know-?"

"No! And I don't want to! Now, can we get back to me telling you to keep perfectly still and not to move?"

"It's not as if I'm planning to go anywhere but down." Vala peeked out over the edge and made a whistling-splat motion, complete with sound effects and hand motions. Leaving a theatrical beat of time to mark her presumed death, she flattened herself against the rock face and lolled her head in Daniel's direction.

"Are you quite finished?" he asked, brow raised questioningly. "Sure you don't want another run through for dramatic effect?"

"No," she sighed, "I've seen how it's going to end in my minds eye and it wasn't pretty."

Daniel looked to a point above her head and smiled. "Right, well, I guess we can get on with me saving you then."

"Saving me? You had a plan all this time?"

"You didn't really think I was going to let you plummet to an untimely death, did you? The paperwork alone would have sent Landry to an early grave."

"Triplicate?"

"Not so much," he conceded wryly. "It's more the font they like you to submit it in. I get lost between Browallia New and Browallia UPC."

"Really? I'm a Times New Roman girl myself."

Daniel tossed her a long, hard stare before declaring loudly, "Anywhoo! I really only wanted you to stop moving so the three-foot female spider, drawn to our position by your constant fidgeting and complainings of imminent death, would find something better to eat."

All the blood drained from Vala's face as she cricked her neck trying to look up. "You mean?"

"Uh, huh. Quite a specimen. The comparative exobiology department would have found her color patination and exoskeleton particularly fascinating, had I had my camera with me at the time."

"Daniel?"

"Hmm?"

"Can we get to the part where you save me, please?"

"Oh, right… well, that bit is rather easy."

"It is?"

"Sure!" Daniel reached for the radio on his vest. "Odyssey, this is Jackson - two to beam up."


End file.
